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The Story of Hodlbyte

In the Fall of 1190, Sir Thomas Hodl and his brother-from-another-mother, Sir Ralph Byte decided to join King Richard the Lionheart of England on the third crusade to the Holy Land after the fall of Jerusalem in 1187 to Saladin. And so that is how, in the Summer of 1191, they found themselves in Malta, on the way to Sicily to meet King Richard and King Phillip II of France.

It was there that Sir Thomas met a simple goatherd by the name of Kaldi from whom he planned to liberate several goats to sustain himself and his brother on their quest. But as Ralph was about to liberate Kaldi’s head from his body, the goatherd offered a treasure in exchange for mercy.

“What treasure could you possibly have to offer me, you hedge-born fopnoodle knave?” Sir Thomas asked.

“It is a great treasure, my Lord, an elixir. A sip of this potion will endow a man with boundless energy and a sharpened wit!”

The Knights demanded that Kaldi show them this magic. So Kaldi took from his pouch a plant with white blossoms. It had red, cherry-like fruit and it smelled of jasmine. Kaldi took some of the mysterious plants and fed some of it to one of his goats. In moments, the goat began to dance about, leaping over the horses and butting his head against the stone wall upon which sat Sirs Thomas and Ralph.

“He doesn’t seem so sharp-witted to me,” said Ralph.

“For a goat, he is sharp-witted,” said Kaldi.

Kaldi told Hodl and Byte that these magical plants grew only in his homeland of Ethiopia and that only he knew where to find them. Thus, seeing the value of this magical fruit far exceeded the rewards they hoped to find in the Holy Land, Sirs Thomas Hodl and Ralph Byte went off to Ethiopia with Kaldi to the forests of Kaffa along with the goat, which had not slept for several days to find what seemed to be the true holy grail.

Upon returning home to England with the fruit they had harvested back in Ethiopia, Sirs Thomas Hodl and Ralph Byte opened the very first chain of Kaffa Houses. They hired troubadours to recite bad poetry and minstrels to sing topical songs. In short order, they amassed a small fortune which they lost in the first civil war against wicked King John Lackland.

The great artists of history created masterpieces dedicated to the Knights, Hodl and Byte, memorializing their discovery by leaving secret messages in their creations. Over the years, the art has been vandalized by jealous competitors in an attempt to make the world forget the origin and the role that Sirs Thomas Hodl and Ralph Byte played. But the secret of transforming the fruit of Kaffa was never lost. It was passed down through the generations and eventually, in 1768, crossed the Atlantic to the New World, and the original recipe ended up in a small village in New Hampshire, where the magic potion is still imbuing its magical effects on all who try it. Hodl and Byte knew great coffee, and today their names are synonymous with great coffee and those who seek it out.